Swithland Spring Water
"It all started with a flooded cellar", says Brian Beeby the farmer who set up Leicestershire’s Swithland Spring Water at Hall Farm, Swithland in 1998. “It was a complete pain but indirectly it led to the formation of the business.”
We came to Hall Farm in 1975 as livestock and arable farmers with no idea that we’d end up selling spring water. It was after 23 years of traditional farming that in 1998, we decided to dive into the H2O market.
“We’d already diversified by going into the equine business. But we knew there was a spring down there and had seen the success that Buxton were enjoying.” Brian speculated that he might, just might, be able to reach the spring water that flooded his cellar, extract it, bottle it and sell it.
Diving In
It was a tough decision. The investment needed to dig down to reach the water, pump it up, test it, and jump through all the various environmental hoops, was high. And there was no guarantee it wouldn’t be money down the drain.
We took advice from microbiologists and decided to go for broke. It took us 10 days to dig down through the rock and the first sample we took from below ground proved promising. We then dug down to 80 metres and took another sample, which turned out to be perfect.”
A natural, sustainable resource
At Swithland Spring Water, we extract around 300,000 litres every week from the aquifer, filling over 7,500 19-litre water bottles.
After rainfall hits the ground, it takes up to 50 years to be filtered through the rocks. This naturally purified water, which may well have fell on Leicestershire soil during a heavy rain shower in the 70's goes into our bottling machine, where it is bottled before being delivered to clients across the Country, be it to the Isle of Wight or to high quality deli’s like North’s in Rothley.